Goal50K
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We want to compete.
The two political parties with power have no reason to change. They have no competition. They have everything pretty much under control - their control, not yours. They gerrymander voters to ensure safe seats. They make it hard for competing political parties to mount a real challenge with restrictive ballot access laws that force challengers to jump high hoops. Their power to tax and spend allows those euphemistically called "member items" to buy votes. Creating commissions, authorities and boards make it possible to employ cronies and dispense political patronage to friends and supporters. Contracting work, issuing and revoking licenses, controlling the work of government agents and departments influences how people react to the controlling powers. All of this costs money. Basically, politicians have the ability to fill the treasury with your money and use your money to buy votes. Of course, people sell their votes for access to the treasury and power to enact self-serving laws. This also costs money. Buying political influence has been a continuing scandal. Of course, buying politicians is becoming increasingly costly. Because benefit must be higher than the cost political winners get to reach deeper into the losers' pockets. Their power to decide slips away from some people and transferred to those who pay more for politicians. The science of creating political coalitions long enough to win an election has been refined and institutionalized to a degree that Democrats and Republicans are in equilibrium. Isn't that one reason why the legislature is dysfunctional? Is it not why legislators ignore their own Constitutional requirement for an on-time budget? People organize into winning voting blocks for Republican or Democrat. Protecting constituencies and voting blocks trumps the fundamental law. Laws are passed to please constituencies and voting blocks, not 'The Common Good'. These laws necessarily favor some people by confiscating the choices and values of other people. Why should constituencies - why should anyone - impose their values on others? If you can rationalize imposing your values on others then you ought not to object when others successful impose their values on you. Respecting the values of others is libertarian. The Libertarian Party wants to reduce laws which prohibit some people's values or mandate other people's values. The other political parties do not. The others will not, because they keep winning by passing laws. Why should they change when they are winning? If you want change, you have to make them lose. We are the only alternative. Every other political party wants to write laws to favor some constituency or other. We want to reduce laws that mandate, limit or prohibit choices. CHOICE
is all we can offer.
But what is more valuable than the ability to choose? What do you have when you have no choice? We must point out that those with fewer choices lose. Goal50K is to let people know they have no real political alternative with the major parties because the other political parties rely on obedience to laws. Only libertarians believe in the power of choice - everyone's choices, not just the choices of winning costituents. Goal50K is all about change. It depends on changing voter attitude. We all know the old saying, “Why fix something that isn't broke?” The vast majority of people still believe it’s not broke. We have to help them question their beliefs. The only way they will question their prevailing beliefs is when they are forced to face reality - it's broke. Not long ago, when it called the NYS Legislature the most dysfunctional in the country, the Brennan Center (http://www.brennancenter.org/) sounded a loud alarm that many of us in the LP have known for some time and other people sensed as well. The press has brought attention to this report. Governance problems have been noticed by other organizations. You can find reform minded groups here. Additionally, many ordinary citizens seem to have a sense that things are not as they should be but lack the ability to do anything. Even libertarians (small ‘l’) still hope they can influence major parties to change from within. As an increasing number of people become disillusioned, the clamor for change is becoming louder. Calls for reform will be increasingly heard. Of course, whenever it is noticed that the emperor has no clothes, the emperor promises to reform. Reforms rarely make a difference. Reforms invariably reform prior reforms. Campaign Finance Reform is a perfect example. Since those laws to curb influence buying were enacted more has been spent to buy political influence and power than ever before. Still, the Brennan Center calls for new rules – “New Year, New Rules”. Never mind reality - like Campaign Finance Rules. Isn’t it strange? Many people are disgusted with late budgets, so new rules are demanded as if rules for on-time budgets did not already exist. What else but a call for new laws for a new year should we expect from a law school? If government could have been reformed, why has it not been reformed long ago? The existing political structure can’t be reformed. It has to be eliminated, removed, replaced. We know that rules are not solutions. Rules are the problem. The solution lies in having choices. Laws steal choices. They make people do things they would not want to do if they were free. Politicians make the rules that favor some people at the expense of other people. We libertarians have to point this out. Laws create losers. More laws mean more losers. People will become increasingly frustrated as rules become more abundant and restrictive, as budgets and taxes get higher, as deficits and debts get bigger and as dysfunction is noticed and reported. As deteriorating conditions and lowered quality of life becomes apparent, and as more people become disillusioned, there will be a call for more legislation and fewer choices in an effort to slow the decline. The new laws will not work any better than the old. As government interferes more and more in the ordinary lives of people more people will begin to resent demands for obedience. Blue voters don’t want to have red values imposed on them and red voters don’t want to be made to accept blue values. This conflict is the basis for dysfunction. Caring can't be legislated, nor can effort
be decreed.
Our charge is to convince 50,000 voters that no one should impose values on anyone else. Goal50K is intended to point out that people are not free when values are forced on them by law. Oppression and tyranny results when the values of some, or even most, are forced on others. Goal50K encourage voters to question their prevailing belief of ”A Common Good”. This concept is the modern 'opium of the people'. It is the new religion. We obey in the name of The Public Interest. There is no Public. There are only individuals. Individuals are different. We don’t all think alike. Legislating one way of behaving mandates some people’s values and prohibits or limits people with different values. Goal50K will remind people that the Social Contract is about voluntary agreement, not forced obedience. The Constitution is all about limiting the power of government over an individual’s inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, government has become pervasive, intrusive, demanding, and overpowering. Why should our choices for happiness be limited to Democrat or Republican values? When people see it broken, the prevailing notion is 'Don't get rid of it. Fix it'. "It takes a village" to make it work. "We, the people" are the problem. We just need to make new laws because this is a new year. All we get are more laws that limit more choices. But the problems don’t get fixed. When Detroit produces dysfunctional cars "We, the people" don’t have to fix Detroit. We just choose to buy from Japan or Germany. The market provides a choice of cars. "We, the people" choose the ones we want to pay for. We don’t have to fix the company or petition the Board of Directors or elect the CEO. We don’t need to know how to make better cars. We don’t even have to know how cars work. All we have to do is choose. What if Detroit could pass laws to reduce our choice of cars? What if foreign cars were not allowed, or tariffs made them unaffordable choices? We’ll be told it’s in the public interest, but then the public would be named Detroit. What is more liberating than the power to choose? Laws steal our choices. What do you have when you have no choice? We need more choices and fewer laws. It IS broke! But it is broken according to the law. Why? Some people benefit even when it’s broken. We are told, and often believe, that government is accountable to “The People”. Schools are heavily regulated under the law. They are also very expensive and often dysfunctional. So, “We, the People” must want the expensive underperforming schools we have. If we do not want them, then how is government accountable to us? If government is not accountable to us, doesn’t that make us accountable to government? If not to us, to whom is it accountable? Schools are broken, but teachers get paid. We must pay them. It’s The Law! Isn’t “government” just a different word for “law”? But whose laws must “We, the People” obey? Laws can be chains. Have not the worst social calamities been done in the name of The Law? Shouldn’t we reject laws we oppose? Shouldn't we elect legislators who give us choices instead of laws? Libertarian legislators would do that. Fewer Laws - More Choices! This should be our message to disillusioned and resentful voters. Libertarians must find ways to get at least 50,000 voters to accept this message by November 2006. That is what Goal50K is all about. It is a worthy goal. It needs your help. If people are upset, or disillusioned or just fed up, they need to know they will find no solace in Republicans or Democrats. Those two have their monopoly in place. By voting for either of them Republicans and Democrats will continue to win, but voters will continue to lose. People have to help create a competing political party. It will not happen by itself. Think tanks can't run for office. We are their only alternative to more contolling laws. |